Sometimes a combination of topics hits you just so. The nexus of art, writing, poverty and religion in Heather King's recent blog post in response to Dana Gioia's First Things article certainly did that. I've commented on it here before, but I certainly see a Catholic worldview in this tree stump vigil, the sense that if you stare long enough at the remains of a tragedy some concealed meaning will seep from the cracks in the universe and into your head. Here's hoping.
THOU art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems.
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